Deborah
A feminine name of Hebrew origin meaning "bee".
Name Census estimates that about 544,971 living Americans carry the first name Deborah. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Deborah today is around 66 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Deborah births was 1954 (54,755 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Deborah. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Deborah with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Deborah is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 1,658 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Deborah is about 66 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Deborahs were born before 1970.
- • Compared to the 1950s, recent registration numbers for Deborah have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
545K
~ 1 in 629 Americans
Peak year
1954
54,755 babies that year
Average age
66
years old
1990 SSA rank
#852
Tracked since 1880
Census
Deborah in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 622,212 people with the first name Deborah, which placed it at #66 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#66
National first-name rank
People counted
622K
622,212 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
206.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
83.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Deborah
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Deborah is White at 83.5%. The next largest groups are Black (9.7%) and Hispanic (3.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Deborah described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Deborah at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White83.5% · 519,324
- Black or African American9.7% · 60,417
- Hispanic or Latino3.3% · 20,441
- Two or more races2.3% · 14,437
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.8% · 4,755
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.5% · 2,838
Gender
Gender distribution for Deborah
Out of the 744,162 babies given the name Deborah since 1880, 99.8% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Deborah as a male name
- Ranked #8,411 in 1990
- 5 male births in 1990
- Peak: 1955 (100 births)
Deborah as a female name
- Ranked #852 in 2024
- 316 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1954 (54,675 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Deborah appears almost entirely female. Of the 622,217 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Deborah: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Deborah from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1950s, with 431,329 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1950s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Deborah by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Deborah during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Deborahs live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Deborah, while Wyoming, Nevada, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 14,489 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Deborah
The name Deborah originates from the Hebrew language and is derived from the word "dever" meaning "bee" or the related word "devorah" meaning "she who speaks." It is believed to have originated in ancient Israel during biblical times.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, Deborah was a prophetess and the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel, as recounted in the Book of Judges. She was known for leading the Israelites to victory against the Canaanites, alongside Barak, in the 12th century BCE.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Deborah is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient Jewish religious manuscripts dating back to the 3rd century BCE. This suggests the name was in use among Jewish communities during the late Second Temple period.
In the Middle Ages, the name Deborah was less common, but it did appear in various records and literature. For example, Deborah was the name of a character in the medieval play "The Siege of Jerusalem" by Ezekiel Landau, which depicted the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
Some notable individuals named Deborah throughout history include:
1. Deborah (12th century BCE), the biblical prophetess and Judge of Israel.
2. Deborah ben Yehuda (1st century CE), a Jewish heroine during the Jewish Revolt against the Romans.
3. Deborah of Hungary (c. 1284 – c. 1325), a Hungarian princess and the wife of King Charles I of Hungary.
4. Deborah Sampson (1760 – 1827), a woman who disguised herself as a man to serve in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
5. Deborah Kerr (1921 – 2007), a Scottish actress known for her roles in films such as "The King and I" and "From Here to Eternity."
The name Deborah has been consistently used throughout history, though its popularity has varied across different regions and time periods. It has maintained a strong connection to its Hebrew roots and biblical significance.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Deborah
People
Deborah + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Deborah as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Deborah: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Deborah?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 544,971 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Deborah going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 629 US residents.
Is Deborah a common name?
We classify Deborah as "Very Common". It ranks above 99.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 744,162 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Deborah most popular?
The single biggest year for Deborah was 1954, when 54,755 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Deborah is about 66 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Deborah in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 622,212 people with the name Deborah, or 206.01 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #66 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Deborah in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Deborah?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Deborah appears almost entirely female. Of the 622,217 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Deborah?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Deborah is White at 83.5%. The next largest groups are Black (9.7%) and Hispanic (3.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Deborah most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Deborah in the 2020 Census, accounting for 83.5% (519,324 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Deborah in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Deborah a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Deborah in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Deborah still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Deborah in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Deborah can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Deborah?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many Americans are named Deborah at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.